A: the more i learn about robeson (yes i saw the pbs thang) the more i admire him, but
he was never one of the lights i followed
back in the days when i was picking heroes. even when i thought of great americans who had
to leave the country to get
respect, i never thought of robeson. all i knew was 'othello', 'emporor jones' and 'old
man river'. but i did know that he was a
straight arrow who was classically underemployed. whenever i think of underemployment
among black americans i see the
image of robeson, the all-american ivy leaguer as a two bit law clerk in nyc.
my best friend in college, and frat buddy, absolutely worshipped robeson. and i have
always found something unique in his
courage, his transparent humanity and spirit which now i know is very much like robeson's.
today, i am thinking very much of my own online work in parallel with robeson. (yeah
right). i often wonder what kind of
trouble it would get me in, for i speak the truth as i see it combining my own personality
and style with things that are
necessarily political, but not aligned with any party line. i speak about freedom and
challenges to it and defiance of evil. ---
at any rate, i've always been inspired pretty much along class lines (vis a vis the
talented tenth). i've always felt that i was
living in a second harlem renaissence among the vanguard. it's difficult to explain
briefly my choices of heroes:
malcolm x, moliere, mishima, cornel west, matthew henson, jean toomer.
matthew henson was the only one of these cats i would consider an original hero. he's
certainly the first and only of those i
admired as a child. so while most of the kids were reciting all the standard raft of role
models, it was henson in his parka who
insprired me. in a world of color lines and borders, henson represented the man who would
go anywhere, even giving
meaning to places which had only been myth before.
cornel west is the last individual i am likely to call a hero. i've actually met him and
spoke several times. i came upon his work
in 89 in a photocopied excerpt. it was a brief and concise boiling down of existential
models for the black intellectual. it was
published again in his book 'breaking bread' co-authored with bell hooks. it turns out
that a close friend of the family, who is
likely to be the highest ranking black woman in the episcopal church, studied under west
and had a very high opinion of him.
this only enhanced his reputation. upon reading 'the american evasion of philosophy' i
came across the solution the cranky
skepticism of chomsky and so much more. i think most importantly west has no compunction
about being a public
intellectual, broadly addressing issues of politics, religion and art as well as being a
very cogent and outspoken social critic.
plus, i know he can do the funky chicken. what else could you ask for - close ties to
africa? check. ivy league pedigree?
check. old school values? check.
everything moliere has ever written should be sampled over beats and blasted in a jeep
driven by ice cube and parked in front
of lily white suburban chambers of commerce. but beyond that, like most
philosophy/computer science students trying to
figure out what they missed in the liberal arts side of the house, i fell in love with his
character alceste. i find a perfect parallel
between his acidic criticism of his middleclass with that of the critics in america's
emergent classes of our old order. this was
especially easy in the reagan era.
never having read the autobiography of malcolm x, i was not unnecessarily burdened by
making some false association with
his rebellious youth. instead, i came face to face with malcolm x through 'malcolm x
speaks' and i was absolutely floored by it.
and while malcolm mostly represents a symbol to me, i find him the ultimate symbol of
unapologetic pride. he represents the
attitude of a man absolutely convinced of his own value as a human being and steadfast
refusal to be a cosigner of his own
exploitation, oppression or manipulation. he also faced death as a family man.
mishima further represents an aspect of courage i find heroic. i am particularly fond of
his phrase 'the unity of pen and
sword'. i look to mishima's injunctions against the pollution of culture. although his
'army' was tragic, and i suspect he was a
bit of the lothario in his recruitment, he represents the ultimate length an artist can
go, perhaps must go in defense of the
broad sweep of his artistic purpose. it is one thing to suffer at the hands of others for
the sake of one's art. but that's passive.
how ennobling is that in the end?
jean toomer represents to me the troubled soul living between worlds and squeezing out
artistic lemonade from life's small
tragedies. in 'cane' volumes of feeling are exuded from small simple phrases. it is a type
of beauty i find especially appealing
and reminds us of the preciousness of nature, and the nature of people.
it must be said that my attraction to mishima came at a particularly difficult part of
my life. as a national student leader i faced
a set of extraordinary schisms. our organization was in conflict over resources to be
split among high achievers and those
struggling to make ends. i was torn between my academic concerns and those of the
organization. within my studies, i
couldn't decide on whether i should pursue computer science or philosophy. i hated the
fact that i was at a state school which
was too easy, and kept applying for transfer. should i dedicate myself to pure
intellectual advancement, or get a high paying
job? should i keep up my own independent writing and reading or just do my homework?
should i remain an exponent of
thomas sowell or of jesse jackson? should i fill out my understanding of black authors or
read more primo levi? should i
continue pursuit of my own business or just take these internships?
in the end i tried to do a little bit of everything, burned out, went broke, dropped out
of school and quit the organization, got a
job and moved to south central la. in the midst of all this i was incredibly harsh on
american culture. what is now the massive
computer industry was perfectly plain to me in 1986 as was my place in it. but i was
particularly aggrieved by the fact that as
a black man in his early 20s all of the associated respectability of this profession was
non-existent. and one event that
highlighted the trouble for me was my criticism of the reagan administration vis a vis
central america (i was a strong supporter
of cispes in student council) and grenada.
I realize i can go on and on about these contradictions. before discovering chomsky and
blonsky, who explained these matters
elaborately, it was mishima who embodied the discipline to philosophically unify politics,
arts, academics and most
importantly public honor in his person. i assimilated his lessons with the phrase
'civilization is where you put it', and came to
understand how individuals must lead who do more than make simple political gestures
without spiritual commitment too. it
became clear to me that narrowminded expediencies of all types leveraged american regimes
of great power and such people
did not give a damn about the public sphere or the integrity of their influence.
the consequence of forcing oneself to be well rounded, or rather i should say, a full
human being, as exemplified in mishima's
portraits of perfection, is to bring oneself to the ability to judge life and death. it
was all about integrity - that the english
language had no adjectival form of the word 'integrity'. americans are full of subterfuge,
dodging this and evading that, yet
leveraging huge amounts of power based on showing off in one strange dimension of their
humanity. america is all about
making deals, and such deals are made by connivance because there is no publicly
understood concept of honor fit to assess
the content of anyone's character. instead we use credit card networks. being a computer
scientist, i understood the
implications. digital representations of honor undermine our ability to understand each
other, use of these represenations (of
any sort, like state college degrees) forced us to accept smaller and smaller conceptions
of each other...
in the meantime, japanese business was beating 'ours' in a half dozen major industries.
was america getting what it deserved?
could american character be brought to heel? might there be a noble arena availed to all?